tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-138737282008-04-01T04:38:14.502-05:00Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-29113438862982231332008-04-01T04:34:00.002-05:002008-04-01T04:38:14.583-05:00

One of the tech writers here at NI Shanghai has posted a great entry describing what she does all day. Now, we don't do all of this stuff every day. But a large majority of it will be done over the course of a week or so. At any rate, it's a great peek into just what life is like at the office -- because I know you all were curious about exactly that :-)

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-29361200347210578902008-03-21T03:46:00.002-05:002008-03-21T04:14:18.558-05:00

I've never had the opportunity to learn a foreign language before, outside of the pidgin-Spanish I can remember from 7th-8th grade. Coming to Shanghai and attempting to learn Mandarin has been an adventure. A frustrating and difficult adventure, but a worthwhile and rewarding one also. At the same time as I'm trying to learn a new language (or at least get some basic handle on it), I'm reviewing

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-24973559309639353522008-03-04T03:58:00.002-06:002008-03-04T04:05:21.894-06:00

From now on, I'm going to start filing typos as bug reports that are far more serious than "trivial". Barry Bonds seized on a pair of typos, complaining in court papers Thursday that the government's mistakes could compromise his chances for a fair trial. The typographical errors showed up in a recent filing by prosecutors wrongly accusing Bonds of flunking a drug test in 2001. They later

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-73398363791348768932008-02-10T21:27:00.000-06:002008-02-10T21:56:38.926-06:00

For the 3+ years I've been at NI, I have been reviewing documents by printing out hard copies and distributing them to reviewers. However, now that I am doing more reviewing than writing, I've fallen in love with the commenting features of Adobe Reader. The process works like this: Create CHM or PDF files. Print CHM file to a PDF file. We can do this because we have Acrobat installed.Enable PDF

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-37509169450169286892007-12-27T12:57:00.001-06:002007-12-27T13:55:13.593-06:00

(Side note: Every time I see the acronym for Subject Matter Expert, I think of Smee from Captain Hook. Every time.) Through a co-worker's blog, I came across a post about sitting near your SME at the office. I cannot agree more emphatically. At NI, most of technical writers sit in the same general location as the engineers for whom they write documentation. For most of my three years here, I

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-17390283663037712372007-11-27T10:09:00.000-06:002007-11-27T11:25:44.298-06:00

...but I wanted to link to two posts I saw on the User Advocacy blog:Technical Writing in Transition: Part 1 and Part 2.Makes for some interesting reading, I think.Quote: Technical writing has adapted with three fundamental changes: 1. Task-oriented writing. Instead of describing the parts of a system, we walk the user through tasks and explain technical knowledge incidentally. 2.

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-42018982908433552602007-08-03T15:24:00.000-05:002007-08-03T15:33:52.690-05:00

File this one under "Coolest Things I've Ever Seen." Vineet samples himself beatboxing and singing. He can do this multiple times until he is giving himself a full backing melody. His mic is hooked into a PXI-7831R running LabVIEW FPGA. The performance is from the NI Live Talent Show we have once a year; this one was on July 12 2007. Watch this one to see Vineet turn it up a notch! Try

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-23695203469652356882007-08-02T15:30:00.001-05:002007-08-02T15:33:34.627-05:00

NIWeek 2007 starts next Tuesday, August 7th at the Austin Convention Center! This year, instead of simply attending, I'm giving a presentation! Here's the info: Date / Time: Wednesday August 8th, 3:30 PM. Room 16A. Title: Documentation Dividends: Help that Pays Off Abstract: Well-planned product documentation can save time, reduce customer frustration, and improve your product’s reputation.

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-86307526887995928742007-06-28T08:44:00.000-05:002007-06-28T09:36:50.722-05:00

Jim Kring and Joel Sumner have posted recently about the benefits of source code control (SCC) for software development. At NI, the technical writers also use SCC for our documentation development. For those who are unfamiliar with SCC, it works like this: Your source files are stored in a repository on a central server.To edit a source file, you must "check out" the file. Checking out a file

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-81118196214202602402007-06-18T17:31:00.000-05:002007-06-18T17:32:57.311-05:00

Even our developers think so :-)

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-22295927772743998932007-06-08T14:52:00.000-05:002007-06-08T14:54:20.284-05:00

Interested in working as a technical writer but don't know what it is that we do? Our Texas Tech recruiting team gathered some alumni and put together an informative video that consists of interviews with technical writers and managers here at NI. The video also has some great tips for those who are applying for technical writing jobs. Top tip: Proofread your resume! :-)

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-48303611574877354252007-05-25T09:16:00.001-05:002007-05-25T10:08:26.026-05:00

At NI we have a company-wide style guide. One of the weirdest things about it, and something which I've had the most trouble getting used to, is the guideline against splitting verbs. Before I came to NI, I'd write a sentence like this: You can also double-click the Add function. But now I write like this: You also can double-click the Add function. Also: You must manually specify the

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-72804032272403781442007-05-16T09:41:00.000-05:002007-05-16T09:49:57.405-05:00

I don't know how I missed this, and I apologize for not posting it sooner! For those of you who are familiar with wikis, the LAVA (LabVIEW Advanced Virtual Architects) group has a wiki for LabVIEW. I encourage you all to go and contribute your knowledge to this compendium. Communication among customers about LabVIEW always is a good thing. It will be interesting to see how this wiki compares

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-3968637198553010082007-05-11T11:13:00.000-05:002007-05-11T14:47:19.614-05:00

A company called Walker Reading Technologies has produced research showing that the human brain is not "wired" to read text in the traditional way we print it, which is in blocks. In short, we're constantly filtering out text that surrounds what we're trying to actually read. This filtering impedes our comprehension of the material. Supposedly, the optimal format is a series of "short,

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-4916996141148042932007-01-11T13:06:00.000-06:002007-01-11T13:39:53.041-06:00

As part of a great effort between our technical writers and the SW developers, LabVIEW has multiple entries into the LabVIEW Help. The LabVIEW Help itself is huge, which is mostly a function (hah!) of the number of things you can do with LabVIEW. Additionally, because many LabVIEW customers use the product to make other products, we have to account for a lot of use cases, generalities, and

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-76726380993497444892007-01-08T10:05:00.000-06:002007-01-08T10:34:33.899-06:00

I opened my inbox this morning and found an email from my dad. He congratulated me because NI made FORTUNE magazine's "Top 100 Companies to Work For" list for the 8th consecutive year. I seem to remember that last year we were higher in the rankings, but being in the list is a good thing all by itself. It would have been neat to have been able to participate in the employee survey, but it's

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1164068855280780472006-11-20T18:12:00.000-06:002006-11-20T18:36:07.586-06:00

Every year at NI, we have an internal conference for all the employees in the Technical Communications department. This conference, conveniently enough called NI-TC (for NI-Tech Comm) is in late October and lasts for two days. It's a time for us to bring everyone up to speed on what's going on the department. We have multiple presentations/seminars, a demo fair that showcases the neat products we

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1162915299398576252006-11-07T09:48:00.000-06:002006-11-07T10:02:23.540-06:00

6-7 years ago, NI created a website, in partnership with Texas Tech University, that walks you through A Week in the Life of a Technical Communicator. Because the design is so 90s, and because the "star" of the web site is no longer with NI, in January 2006 a group of writers decided to update the site with a more "modern" look. (Wow, that's a lot of quotes here.) The result is a

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1162846300795990502006-11-06T14:46:00.000-06:002006-11-06T14:52:58.943-06:00

Every Halloween, the LabVIEW team sets up various demos of our products for other members of the company. This year, the VI Road Show invaded and caught some of what went on. The following video shows Varun, myself, and Alex discussing and demonstrating the LabVIEW Simulation Module. Beware the horrible scrolling CRT monitors! P.S: I feel I should explain my bloody face :-) My costume this

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1161985386848094192006-10-27T16:32:00.000-05:002006-10-27T16:44:00.996-05:00

I was re-reading the post about April's interview in the Statesman, and the last sentence stuck out at me: ...the fact that she is not a programmer or engineer serves her well as a tech writer. This phrase is very true. I said the very same thing to a class of students at UTSA last fall, and I find myself thinking it at the career fairs I've been to recently. Many job applicants hear "technical

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1161366637641375182006-10-20T12:49:00.001-05:002006-10-20T12:50:37.663-05:00

Welcome the newest NI Blog member - the VI Road Show. This is actually a vlog (video blog) that will take you around the country (and possibly world) as the owners showcase NI's employees and customers.

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1161209873357716282006-10-18T17:14:00.000-05:002006-10-18T17:20:34.266-05:00

The Austin American-Statesman recently interviewed a co-worker of mine, April Brinkmeyer. She is a technical writer for the LabVIEW core product. Here's a snippet: Writing, reviewing, updating and improving the program's extensive help documentation in-program, in print and online is an on-going project for Brinkmeyer and the others on the documentation team. She also sits on committees that

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1160496286241076292006-10-10T10:52:00.000-05:002006-10-10T11:20:51.646-05:00

I'm not sure how it is at other places, but part of being a technical writer at NI is dealing with usability. We are often the first non-engineers/non-developers to see a feature in action. We come across many malformed and confusing dialog boxes, interface widgets, organizational structures, and so on. In LabVIEW we have a great usability advocate in Christina Rogers, who recently made a

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1159892999033153592006-10-03T11:25:00.000-05:002006-10-03T11:29:59.046-05:00

/. has a bit this morning about bloggers competing with high schoolers on the SAT essay. If you like, you can even rate the bloggers' submissions yourself! Here's the essay question, timed at 20 minutes: Directions: Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13873728.post-1158776766232871112006-09-20T13:22:00.000-05:002006-09-20T13:35:44.613-05:00

Since the day I started at NI, I knew I wanted to be involved in recruiting technical writers. We have a dedicated HR department at NI, but the people you see at career fairs are regular full-time employees. I like this method much better than having recruiters represent us, because I know more about technical writing at NI than the HR people do. Therefore, when students come up to me or I

Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13544462798718591052noreply@blogger.com